Meeting Mary in Lourdes: Celebrating ‘The Bernadette Year’

In 1858, Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes was favored with 18 apparitions of the Virgin Mary while kneeling before her luminous presence in the Grotto of Massabielle. This year marks the 175th anniversary of her birth and the 140th anniversary of her death. In preparation for the historic moment, last year, relics of the young shepherdess were carried on pilgrimage from the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes to churches throughout France, Germany and Italy, many of them filled to overflowing with the faithful. The relics are now being venerated at the Lourdes sanctuary by thousands of pilgrims during what has been designated “The Bernadette Year.”

Ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi that the law of praying establishes the law of believing